Car's secret compartment OK, if it's for a gun

Gun-rights groups have successfully pushed for changes to a proposed law that would make it a crime to have a secret compartment in your vehicle.

David Eggert, The Columbus Dispatch

Gun-rights groups have successfully pushed for changes to a proposed law that would make it a crime to have a secret compartment in your vehicle.

The National Rifle Association and Buckeye Firearms Association said yesterday that a new version of the legislation — advocated by Gov. John Kasich to slow down drug smuggling — no longer could cause potential problems for gun owners.

“What originally could have been an unintended threat to gun owners has been modified to provide explicit protection to persons doing nothing more than securing their firearms in their vehicles,” Ken Hanson, legislative chairman of the Buckeye Firearms Association, wrote in a letter distributed at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

Senate Bill 305 now would exempt hidden containers that are manufactured or advertised to be used to secure valuables, electronics or guns in vehicles. The bill also was “refocused,” Hanson said, to require prosecutors to prove that hidden compartments are used with the intent to transport drugs.

The proposed law would make it a fourth-degree felony to own a vehicle equipped with secret compartments whether or not they are found to hold drugs. Currently, there is no state law prohibiting secret compartments, frequently used for drug smuggling.

A conviction would mean up to 18 months in jail and a potential $5,000 fine.

The proposal is sponsored by Sen. Jim Hughes, R-Columbus.

“Many of these compartments employ electronics and/or hydraulics to ensure access to the contraband is reserved to those select few individuals with the codes to open them,” Staff Lt. Chad McGinty, legislative liaison for the State Highway Patrol, told committee members yesterday.

He said it is “frustrating” to watch suspected criminals drive away because their hidden compartments are empty.

Last year, troopers seized nearly 6 million grams of illegal drugs valued at more than $69?m illion.

More committee hearings are expected before lawmakers vote on the bill.